


For Me, It'd Be Enough

by tuesdaysinoctober



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Heartbreak, Idk what else to put for tags, Summer Love, bi!katara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29097351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesdaysinoctober/pseuds/tuesdaysinoctober
Summary: Katara falls in love with Zuko for the summer
Relationships: Katara/Suki (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Yue (Avatar)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	For Me, It'd Be Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Apologies for the shitty summary  
> I fucked around with the ages because this isn't canon >:)  
> I don't like Maiko  
> I don't like Maiko  
> I don't like Maiko  
> Sukitara go brrr  
> Based off of "august" by Taylor Swift  
> Characterization might be a little iffy ngl please tell me if you think so  
> I am a Zutara shipper through and through but august really strikes a chord with me because it sucks to be second best  
> Ahh, implied sex, drinking, and one fuck word so be warned

Katara knows Zuko. 

She’s known him forever, growing up together, not quite friends, but he was there across the playscape and then across the classroom and then in and out of the cafeteria and then suddenly a known presence in her life. 

Sokka recruited him for one of her charity drives and it just kind of stayed that way, Zuko switching from hanging out with them to hanging out with his girlfriend and his sister’s friend group. 

Katara doesn’t know Mai, although she has tried to. Mai doesn’t seem keen to make new friends but Katara does her best to make small talk with her when they have classes together until Mai snaps, “You don’t have to be so _nice_ all the time.” 

Katara keeps her mouth shut after that. 

Her crush on Zuko starts during her junior year, his senior year, and it’s not an all encompassing force, it’s not something that consumes her waking days. It’s just there, bouncing around in her head. She’ll notice when the light catches his eyes in a way that makes them a honey brown and she notices when his rasp of a voice is just a little scratchier than normal, meaning that he was smoking a cigarette or two or more. 

She notices when he starts to hang out with them more and she notices that he completely avoids Azula in the hall and Ty Lee and Mai but she doesn’t ask him why. Should she? They _are_ friends, but. . . 

Aang ends up telling Katara that Zuko and Mai broke up and Katara buys Zuko coffee, offering to talk about it, but Zuko shakes his head with a rogue smile and says no. 

They start to talk a little bit more after that, which makes Katara’s heart flutter but she shoves her feelings down and focuses on work. 

Summer comes, where she spends the first two weeks lifeguarding at Ember Island Beach. The salt air sticks to her skin and she cherishes it, cherishes the way the sun sinks into the sky every night and the bonfire of college students that want to get wasted now that their semester is over. 

She keeps meaning to go see Zuko’s apartment but the days catch up with her and she doesn’t get to until one day she’s driving around at noon and sees Zuko walking down the street, cigarette in his mouth. She appreciates their tiny town, big enough so not everyone knows each other’s names, but small enough you can pull up to someone and tell them to, “get in!” 

He does and instructs her to his new apartment, which she notes has rust on the door. 

“You should get that looked at,” Katara says as she steps into the living room. 

Zuko shrugs. “It’ll be fine.” 

She spends the whole day there, talking and laughing with Zuko at the old comedies the local TV stations play. Sometime after she’s finished laughing at some terrible joke that isn’t even that funny, she meets Zuko’s eyes, eyes she’s wished would look at her for the better part of the year, and Katara barely has time to blink before his lips are on hers and her hands are threaded through his hair. 

She wishes fleetingly that she had brought chapstick or something, seeing as she’s only had soda all day but Zuko doesn’t seem to care that her lips are chapped, just that he gets to kiss her skin and touch her body, which is perfectly fine with Katara. 

It’s dark and late when she finally drives away from his apartment. Sokka is still up and he asks what’s on her neck. 

Quick thinking does not often grace her but now a ball has hit her while she was lifeguarding. 

“On your neck?” Sokka asks skeptically. 

“It’s not unheard of,” Katara says irritably before disappearing into her room. 

The summer continues like this, Katara splitting her time between lifeguarding, Zuko, and hanging out with her friends. 

Zuko mentions something offhand, an inside joke between the two of them, one that’s developed over the weeks, while getting lunch with everyone. 

Katara isn’t expecting it and she spits out her drink, earning a weird look from Sokka and a nervous laugh from Aang. 

A week goes by when she doesn’t hear from Zuko, which makes her oddly nervous. She checks her phone so often that when she goes to visit Sokka at his job at their local mall, she leaves it behind in her room, under a pillow and puts the lack of notifications out of her mind. 

There’s a line a mile long at the shoe store Sokka works at and he begs Katara to take out the trash while he checks the customers' purchases out. 

She sighs and does it willingly, walking out the back door, only to find Zuko leaning against the wall, smoking. 

“Do you, uh, usually haunt these parts?” she asks, hauling the trash bag into the dumpster. 

“Only sometimes,” he says and she shoots him a smile before tugging the door open, but he catches her loose arm and pulls her to him. 

“Didn’t call like you said you would,” she says, staring up at him. The smell of smoke doesn’t bother her as much anymore and she knows that both of their eyes have flicked to each other’s lips before Katara focuses determinedly on his hairline. 

“Phone broke.” 

“Oh, yeah?” 

“Yes, Katara,” he says. 

“Can I go?” she asks. 

“What?” 

“Can I go?” she repeats. “Now that you’ve told me your phone broke and everything.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess,” Zuko says, but he’s frowning, his eyes scrunched in confusion. 

“Thanks,” she says. “Sokka and I were going to catch a movie after his shift.” 

She turns away from him, a small smile playing on her face. 

On a whim, as she’s walking away, Katara decides to turn back and press a kiss to Zuko’s lips, so light, she almost fears that she missed his mouth. 

By now, Katara is sure that her friend group suspects something, although she’s not sure what, so she keeps her mouth shut. Nothing needs to be said. 

***

She sees Zuko three times before the summer ends. 

The first time, they hang out and watch movies, just like at the beginning, but now hands slip under shirts and soft breaths are blown into each other’s ears. 

The second time, it is like they cannot get enough of each other, like they must have one another, and Katara doesn’t think she’s ever felt this way about someone before. 

So, when her shirt is over her head and Zuko whispers, “Are you sure?” and she laughs and says, “What is this? A teenage rom com?” and Zuko grins, Katara thinks that maybe this could last. 

She wakes up with bedsheets twisted around her, morning light filtering through a window, and ten messages from Sokka, twenty five from Aang, and a laughing emoji from Toph. 

They still don’t know. 

The third time, Zuko uncorks a bottle of wine and pours them both a glass. Katara doesn’t often drink but it feels like she’s celebrating something, so she has one, two, three, before she stops and listens to Zuko’s plans to go to college on the other side of the island and rent this apartment out for income. 

She, in turn, tells him about her dreams to go to college out of state, to get a degree in social work or something-- something that could help people. 

***

He moves out quickly and Katara knows he’ll be back in a month for one weekend. 

She clears her schedule for three weeks before he comes home, hoping he’ll call, wishing he’ll call, but he doesn’t. It confuses her for a little bit but there’s still hope, hope that he’ll see her when he comes home. 

He doesn’t. 

There is no word. Not even a fucking hello. 

She resolves to put Zuko out of her mind, to forget about the summer but it’s hard, it’s _so hard_. 

It gets worse when Ty Lee posts that photo. 

Her caption was “dinner date!”

The first picture was her and Azula. Fine. Nothing new. 

The second picture was her and Mai. Also nothing new. 

The third picture was shot sneakily, the subjects obviously not aware they were being photographed. 

Zuko and Mai. Kissing. Although making out would probably have been a better word for it. 

Katara spends a week crying in the dead of night, trying desperately not to let Sokka or Gran-Gran hear her. 

She throws herself into school work, making sure her grades are perfect. She’s already been accepted into multiple colleges but that doesn’t matter. Her record needs to be good. Sometimes the tears sneak up on her and she lets them come. Sometimes she doesn't.

She goes to Ba Sing Se early, as soon as the second semester ends, the town she once loved soured by the memory of past love. 

Her roommate is a bright, pretty girl named Suki, who’s a martial artist and is getting her degree in physical therapy. 

Suki makes Katara go grocery shopping with her the first night they meet, claiming they need to fill up the mini-fridge she brought as soon as possible. 

Katara agrees, baffled, but the three hours that follow were something that Katara could’ve never expected. 

They find snacks and then Suki finds the ingredients to Katara’s favorite meal, which Katara had mentioned offhand when they first entered the store. 

They bring them back to the common room and their floormates join them, turning on a movie and watching Suki get flour on her cheeks. 

Over the next couple of months, Katara and Suki grow closer and closer, helping each other with studying and going out partying together. 

It takes Katara a little while to realize that she likes Suki--as more than a friend-- but once she does, she decides to act on it. If it doesn’t work out, it’s not like they’re going to be roommates next year. 

But Suki accepts her coffee date and by the spring, they’re making plans to introduce each other to their parents. 

Her family welcomes Suki quickly and within a week, she’s part of the family, especially after she offers to cook for them. Sokka jumps up at that, startling a sleeping Yue in his arms, and proclaims that if Katara won’t marry Suki, he will. 

Suki and Katara drive to the grocery store, Katara going down one aisle, Suki going down the other. 

They both have baskets and Katara is surprised by a kiss from Suki coming around the bend. 

The two spend the rest of the trip together until they come down one aisle, where Suki is distracted by the different types of spices and Katara laughs at her for being so concerned about getting it right, when she turns slightly to the left and sees, of all the people, Zuko. 

He’s leaning over a shopping cart, making it look like he’s been prowling the grocery aisles for food. 

Zuko meets her eyes, his own widening in surprise. She holds his gaze, her chin lifted slightly, daring him to say something. He doesn’t.

There’s a pressure on her cheek and she turns to see Suki, who’s holding onto a spice labeled “saffron” and a slight smile. She nods to Katara, then Zuko, and says, “We stan random staring contests with strangers.” which makes Katara snort and Suki laugh and Katara unloads the items in their basket onto the checkout belt minutes later. Their cashier bags the feast Suki is going to make and Katara takes the bags, leaving Suki to do high kicks in the middle of the parking lot on the way to the car. 

Until that moment, Katara hadn’t thought about Zuko in at least six months. 

That’s a good thing.


End file.
